Obama White House counsel Greg Craig was found not guilty Wednesday of misleading Justice Department investigators.
The verdict came after less than a day of jury deliberations in the trial spun off from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The 74-year-old, who worked in President Barack Obama’s administration during his first term and also helped President Bill Clinton during his impeachment proceedings, was the highest-profile Democrat to face charges stemming from Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and any connections with the Trump campaign.
The trial lasted more than two weeks and included a day and a half of testimony from the high-powered Democratic lawyer himself, but the jury began deliberations just on Wednesday morning and delivered its verdict acquitting him in the early afternoon.
Craig had been charged with scheming against DOJ investigators about contacts with the media in promoting a 2012 report written at the behest of the Kremlin-linked government in Ukraine about the country’s prosecution of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was tried under President Viktor Yanukovych. The president was a close ally of Republican operative Paul Manafort, the chairman of Trump’s 2016 campaign, who was convicted of crimes in Mueller’s investigation. Manafort was Craig’s contact with Ukraine, and Craig’s case spun off from Mueller’s inquiry.
The DOJ’s case against Craig focused on the public relations work allegedly performed for Ukraine by Craig and his firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, and Flom. Specifically, the DOJ alleged that Craig helped Ukraine carry out its media strategy when he provided an early copy of the report to New York Times reporter David Sanger.
But Craig’s lawyers argued that he didn’t lie and that his only involvement in media outreach was to stop the whitewashing of the conclusions of his report by Ukraine or people working for Manafort, such as right-hand man Rick Gates and publicist Jonathan Hawker.
Prosecutors said Craig “schemed, falsified, and concealed,” facts from the DOJ’s Foreign Agents Registration Act unit in 2013. The foreign agents law mandates anyone working for a foreign government register with DOJ. Craig denied helping Ukraine advance its agenda.
Wednesday’s not guilty verdict is a setback to the DOJ as it seeks to enforce FARA more broadly, following a successful prosecution against Manafort and others.
DOJ’s FARA unit exchanged letters with Craig in 2013 and, based on his initial responses, concluded he needed to register under the law. Craig disagreed, saying he might appeal this all the way to then-Attorney General Eric Holder.
DOJ brought Craig in to meet with the FARA unit in October 2013. Craig sent DOJ his summation of the meeting shortly after, and DOJ reversed itself and concluded Craig didn’t have to register after all. Mueller revived the case amid renewed scrutiny of Manafort. But no one took any notes during the crucial 2013 meeting at DOJ, and no investigators could specifically quote anything Craig said then.
The defense criticized DOJ for this oversight in closing arguments Tuesday.
“This is the most important meeting in the recent history of FARA, and no one took any notes,” Craig’s attorney said.
Craig’s lawyers agreed that “a person has a duty to be truthful” but insisted that “Mr. Craig did not lie to the FARA unit and did not conceal anything.”
But prosecutors pointed to a number of controversies yesterday they believed Craig should have told the FARA unit about. The first was Craig’s apparent willingness to sign onto “Project Two” — helping advise Ukraine on its planned second prosecution of Tymoshenko — which Skadden initially signed onto before backing away. Prosecutors also believed the FARA unit should’ve been told about Manafort’s involvement in the Skadden’s project and about the source of the project’s funding, as $4 million came from Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk.
“This is why FARA matters,” prosecutors told the jury. “All of this would’ve come out, but none of it did at the time.”
But Craig’s lawyers questioned who cared about any of those issues, saying that Project Two was abandoned early on, claiming Manafort wasn’t known in 2012 or 2013 as the nefarious character he is today, and arguing Craig himself wanted Pinchuk’s identity made public.
“Mr. Craig didn’t want to register because he didn’t think he was required to register,” Craig’s lawyers said.
The charges carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
